Menendez, Blackmail Plots

Somewhat similarly, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who was January his party's Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is a hawk also on U.S. intervention. He has made clear that he is far more aligned with Republicans on such policies than any go-slow voices among fellow Democrats.

Menendez is shown at right in a file photo portraying his attendance at a White House dinner. His date was the unsuccessful 2012 congressional candidate Gwendolyn Brooks, a financial consultant and author. For still-unclear reasons, her name appeared (as did that of former President Clinton and many other world-class celebrities) in an address book maintained by the late Florida housekeeper to billionaire investor Jeffrey Epstein, who was the leading donor by far to the Brooks congressional campaign.

Menendez has recently been reported as likely to be indicted soon on corruption charges stemming from official favors to a businessman crony.

With, that prelude, here is a summary of four matters missing from most commentary on the Clinton email scandal:

Resumption of Media War Against the Clintons

First, Clinton received at least some sensitive information from private political intelligence operative Sidney Blumenthal via her private email system. The relationship illustrated, among other tings, the Washington reality little known to the public: Even officials like Clinton supervising thousands of government employees sometimes believe they need maintain private information networks. The circumstances from about 60 pages of hacked and apparently authentic Blumenthal-Clinton emails suggested that he informed her that former CIA Director David Petraeus was forced out of office in November 2012 because he allegedly participated in an "October Surprise" plot against the Obama administration involving Benghazi. Blumenthal's intelligence memo for Clinton, which came a day after commentator Wayne Madsen reported the same thing to his readers, was contrary to the Obama administration's public statements that the director and former general's major transgression was a sex scandal with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, and his release to her of classified documents. The mainstream media has relied exclusively up to now on the conventional wisdom about the Petraeus ouster, not the Madsen-Blumenthal version. The circumstances of Blumenthal's email indicate additionally that Clinton wanted to rely on him, a former White House aide during the 1990s whom the Obama administration had denied a government post.

Second, one email from Blumenthal to Clinton made public by the criminal hacker "Guccifer" seemingly quotes Blumenthal as arguing that President Obama sacked CIA Director David Petraeus because of suspected Petraeus disloyalty in an “October Surprise” plot by well-connected opponents of the president to use the Benghazi scandal to prevent his reelection in 2012. Such a basis for the Petraeus forced resignation shortly after the election conflicts with the Obama administration's official explanation: That they ousted the married Petraeus because of his affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell and leak to her of classified documents. Given the power of the CIA and the continued prominence of Petraeus and his supporters even within the Obama administration, the situation has grave and continuing implications for the notion that an elected president commands and controls the executive branch and its intelligence and war-making powers. Our ongoing coverage of the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy is partly to convey.

Third, the Clinton role in helping the Obama administration and a bipartisan Congress support revolutions and undeclared wars and similarly dangerous and oft-ineffective policies poses a threat to the public far beyond the potential benefit to her fund-raising. The U.S.-initiated overthrow of Libya’s dictator, for example, represents a monumental human tragedy and ongoing threat to regional peace far beyond the deaths of the four Americans in Benghazi.

Finally, the major media have proven unwilling to explore these factors in any depth despite their extensive coverage of more trivial aspects voiced by partisans.

Several of these themes were revealed by Madsen via his blog WMR, a subscription site excerpted here with his permission and in his 2012 book, L’Affaire Petraeus. Madsen, a former Navy intelligence officer and author of multiple books shown in a file photo, has published opeds well over a hundred times in mainstream U.S. newspapers during the past three years. He is also controversial for his commentaries via other channels, including on foreign media and in his books, alleging criminal conduct, sex scandals and other abuses by U.S. government officials. He is a target of sustained smear campaigns, as we (among others) have documented a series of columns, incuding this one from 2014 Investigative Reporter Implicates Wikipedia In Smear Campaign. His Wikipedia bio has had hundreds of edits by several anonymous critics who use their clout in Wikipedia's hierarchy to forbid corrections or balance to his unwanted listing.

Nonetheless, fallout from the Clinton email scandal appears to sustain one of his more aggressive, source-based stories, which reported exclusively in November 2012 that the Obama administration had forced out Petraeus because his CIA team had proven disloyal on the Benghazi matter, not because of the Broadwell sex scandal.

An e-mail sent by unofficial adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Sidney Blumenthal, which was revealed by the computer hacker known as "Guccifer," describes the belief by some higher-ups in the Obama administration that the resignation of Central Intelligence Agency director David Petreaus on November 8, 2012, the day after Barack Obama's re-election, was tied to a plot by Mitt Romney and Petraeus to engineer an "October Surprise" to engineer Obama's electoral defeat. As can be seen in the email, dated November 12, 2012, the idea of the Petreaus resignation being tied to an October Surprise gambit was reported by Blumenthal to Clinton the day after WMR reported: "Petraeus indiscretion may be linked to 'October Surprise' plot."

The media often downplay the brutal realities involved in physical and political protection of a president. Two recent examples:

The heavy recent coverage of Secret Service misconduct and security failure rarely mentions the mind-boggling lapses that enabled President Kennedy's assassination. Coverage is rare also of the failure of Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, to discipline anyone in the Secret Service for the breakdowns.

Similarly, the media rarely cover disloyalty within the inner-circles of high officials. Yet back-stabbing and a perceived need for secrecy, even between colleagues, occurs even within the same administration on occasion with the stakes in Washington so high.

That kind of information gaps helps explain why Hillary Clinton wanted her own intelligence network and her own email system as Secretary of State, even if doing so may have violated law or public sensibilities.

According to commentator and former Navy intelligence officer Wayne Madsen, Clinton used Washington insider Sidney Blumenthal, a former journalist and 1990s White House aide, for political intelligence on sensitive topics even though she was one of the nation's highest ranking federal officials and had access to the work of vast numbers of Obama administration staffers.

As a sample of Blumenthal's private intelligence gathering for her, he sent her a confidential memo on Nov. 12, 2012 alleging disloyalty to the Obama administration by its just-fired CIA Director David Petraeus. In a report last week, Madsen cited a copy of this memo distributed by "Guccifer," a Romanian who had illegally hacked into Blumenthal's account.

Conventional wisdom has been that Obama fired the married Petraeus because of his affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, shown in the photo. But Blumenthal advised Clinton that the real reason was suspected disloyalty by Petraeus reflected in the Benghazi debacle and Republican efforts to exploit the deaths during the just-finished election. Blumenthal's high-level analysis mirrored what Madsen had published the previous day about Petraeus and the Benghazi scandals on his subscription site WMR and in his subsequent book, L'Affaire Petraeus.

The public relations game over firing the well-connected Petraeus was complex, in part because he retained strong support on Wall Street, Capitol Hill and elsewhere in Washington for his aggressive interventionist policies. His DC connections include the Petraeus-founded (CNAS), which funnels many neo-liberal and neo-conservative personnel into the Obama administration. The Wall Street firm KKR appointed Petraeus leader of KKR's Global Initiatives unit, and the Justice Department closed its investigation of his leaked classified documents to Broadwell with a misdemeanor charge regarded as a wrist-slap for an offense that sends those without political clout to prison.

Out of this, one implied lesson for all of us is that even someone at Hillary Clinton's level thinks she needs alternative information sources than the conventional media and the State Department bureaucracy.

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News Reports

Note: Excerpts are from the authors' words except for subheads and occasional "Editor's notes" such as this.

May 25

Washington Post, New electoral maps for Ohio and Michigan can wait, Supreme Court says, Robert Barnes, May 25, 2019 (print ed.). While they consider the question of partisan gerrymandering, the justices put lower-court decisions finding those states’ maps unconstitutional on hold. The Supreme Court on Friday put on hold lower-court decisions that said Ohio and Michigan had to come up with new electoral maps because of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering.

The decision was not surprising, because the justices are currently considering whether judges should even have a role in policing partisan gerrymandering. There were no noted dissents in the orders for either state.

The Supreme Court in March heard arguments in similar cases from North Carolina, where judges found that Republicans had manipulated congressional maps to their advantage, and from Maryland, where Democratic lawmakers redrew a district that resulted in a loss for a longtime Republican congressman.

While the Supreme Court regularly examines redistricting plans for signs of racial gerrymandering, it has never found a state’s plan so infected with partisan politics that it violates the rights of voters. The decision in the North Carolina and Maryland cases are expected before the end of June.

With the decisions from Ohio and Michigan, federal courts in five states have struck down maps as partisan gerrymanders. The courts in the Ohio and Michigan decisions ordered the states to come up with new maps that could be used in the 2020 elections.

May 24

UK's May Will Leave June 7

New York Times, Theresa May, Undone by Brexit, Will Step Down as Prime Minister, Stephen Castle, May 24, 2019. Mrs. May said she would resign after almost three years of trying and failing to lead Britain out of the European Union. Her departure is likely to set off a vicious contest to succeed her within the governing Conservative Party. Facing a cabinet rebellion, Theresa May announced on Friday morning her decision to leave office. She spoke briefly after meeting with Graham Brady, a powerful leader of backbench Conservative lawmakers.

Standing in front of 10 Downing Street, Mrs. May, shown in a file photo at right, said it was in the “best interests of the country for a new prime minister” to lead Britain through the Brexit process. She announced plans to step down as the leader of the Conservative Party on June 7, with the process to replace her beginning the following week.

“I feel as certain today as I did three years ago that in a democracy, if you give people a choice you have a duty to implement what they decide. I have done my best to do that,” she added. “I have done everything I can to convince MPs to back that deal. Sadly, I have not been able to do so.”

Conservative lawmakers have been deeply frustrated by Mrs. May’s failure to deliver on Brexit, which became the government’s central — some would say its sole — preoccupation after the country voted to leave the union in a 2016 referendum.

But the breaking point has come at an awkward moment, with President Trump scheduled to arrive in Britain on June 3 for a state visit and to take part in events to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings that preceded the end of World War II.

Trump Empowers Barr for "Spying" Probe

New York Times, Trump Gives Attorney General Sweeping Power in Review of 2016 Campaign Inquiry, Maggie Haberman and Michael S. Schmidt, May 24, 2019 (print ed.). The directive gives Mr. Barr immense leverage over the intelligence community and enormous power over what the public learns about the roots of the Russia investigation. President Trump took extraordinary steps on Thursday to give Attorney General William P. Barr, right, sweeping new authorities to conduct a review into how the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia were investigated, significantly escalating the administration’s efforts to place those who investigated the campaign under scrutiny.

In a directive, Mr. Trump ordered the C.I.A. and the country’s 15 other intelligence agencies to cooperate with the review and granted Mr. Barr the authority to unilaterally declassify their documents. The move — which occurred just hours after the president again declared that those who led the investigation committed treason — gave Mr. Barr immense leverage over the intelligence community and enormous power over what the public learns about the roots of the Russia investigation.

The order is a change for Mr. Trump, who last year dropped a plan to release documents related to the Russia ...

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Midnight Writer News Podcast,'Presidential Puppetry' with Andrew Kreig, Host S.T. Patrick, Dec. 19, 2018 (Episode 105). Andrew Kreig, the director of the Justice Integrity Project and the author of Presidential Puppetry, joins S.T. Patrick to discuss presidential politics of the last 40 years. What should we have known about George H.W. Bush, Bill & Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, John Kerry, John Edwards, and John McCain?

Kreig takes a non-partisan approach to dissecting the pros, cons, misdeeds, and motivations of American presidential and vice-presidential candidates, dating back decades. In the interview, Kreig covers the Bush dynasty, why Reagan chose Bush in 1980, Bush and the October Surprise, the Willie Horton ad, The Election of 1992, Ross Perot’s deficiencies, what Fletcher Prouty still teaches us, the legitimacy of Bob Dole’s 1996 nomination, the value of Jack Kemp, Bush v Gore, The Two Johns: Kerry & Edwards, the real John McCain, and much more.

Kreig also discusses current events with us, including the Corsi/Stone vs Mueller situation and the unbelievable resolution of the Jeffery Epstein trial in Palm Beach. Andrew Kreig can be read and followed at the Justice Integrity Project.

Wiki Politiki, The Latest REAL News on the 9/11 Attacks and Finding Truth in a Sea of Lies, Steve Bhaerman, Dec. 18, 2018. An Interview with Andrew Kreig, Author, Attorney, Broadcaster and Founder of the Justice Integrity Project. Did you know that In a letter dated November 7, 2018, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York notified the Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry that he would comply with the provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 3332 requiring him to present to a special grand jury the Lawyers’ Committee’s reports filed earlier this year of unprosecuted federal crimes at the World Trade Center?

You didn’t? That’s because mainstream media makes it its business to insure that anything that points to the nefarious doings of the real deep state is “none of its business.” The misinformation, disinformation and missing information that pollute corporate news have created the perfect field for “real” fake news to flourish.